


Detox

by dilaudiddreams



Series: Tumblr Prompts [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Established Relationship, Heavy Angst, Heroin, Hospitalization, M/M, Not Beta Read, Overdose, period, the writers should have addressed the drug addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:01:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24748021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilaudiddreams/pseuds/dilaudiddreams
Summary: "If there were really a Hell, Derek is convinced it'd look a lot like the detox unit at the Quantico hospital."A look into Spencer's attempt to ditch Dilaudid.
Relationships: Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid
Series: Tumblr Prompts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789585
Comments: 24
Kudos: 175





	Detox

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, everyone! 
> 
> This was my first CM fic ever/first in a series of short fics I wrote for ask prompts on my tumblr. I tried to keep it kind of (?) in character. Hope you enjoy :)
> 
> Prompt was:
> 
> "You never meant for it to end this way, right?"

If there were really a Hell, Derek is convinced that it’d look a lot like the detox unit at the Quantico hospital. 

It’s an ugly place—peeling, water-stained wallpaper, an overpowering stench of Lysol wipes and bleach, sterile but not pristine or well-lit like the one up the interstate in DC—and even just walking down the hall, before he so much as lays eyes on Spencer, the absolute misery of it all is suffocating.

He’s alone. 

The first time Spencer overdosed and had to spend two weeks detoxing, the whole unit had accompanied him down this hall. 

After all, the addiction was hardly Spencer’s fault, and none of them had been helpful about it, so their collective guilt compelled them to the hospital. 

Some days, they took turns visiting him one-on-one, and some days, they’d gather around and bicker like a mildly dysfunctional family as they tried to pick a movie to distract Spencer from his withdrawal pains, but Derek was always there. 

Penelope made a garland of pressed flowers and draped it across the dresser in the corner of the room. ( _To brighten it up,_ she'd said. _Some color always helps me deal_.)

Prentiss snuck Spencer some real coffee (they told her she couldn’t have outside containers with her, but she flashed them her FBI badge, which didn’t make sense but seemed to do the trick anyway), since he was only allowed to have decaf while detoxing. ( _You can't live off that. I know you, Reid._ )

Hotch (who, Derek remarked to himself at the time, must have an EQ of approximately 1) was as unflinching and distant as usual, but he burst into Spencer's room almost daily to let him know that he had Diana on the phone, which was his extremely detached way of apologizing from the bottom of his heart. 

JJ, always thoughtful to an almost unnatural degree, brought photos to tape to Spencer’s blank, ugly walls. She wrote **NEVER FORGET: THE BAU LOVES YOU :)!** in the middle of a large poster-board and taped it directly across from his bed.

( _See that, Spence? Now you’ll have to think about that every morning as soon as you wake up and every night right before you go to sleep_ , she told him. He cried.)

After everyone else had left each day, just before the hospital locked down and visiting hours ended, Derek would sit by Spencer’s bed and hold his sweaty, shaking hand. (These were his favorite moments—Spencer was relaxed enough around him that he'd unfurl himself full, and Derek had always loved hearing what was on his mind.)

_I feel loved_ , Spencer would tell him.

_You are._

_I want to get better. I have to get better_. 

_You will._

And for a while, it almost seemed like he would.   
  


It seemed like he _did_ , in fact, until Derek found him convulsing on their bathroom floor with a needle in his arm. 

* * *

That time, there was no outpouring of love in the hospital room. There were no posters or garlands or contraband caffeine. 

Derek still stayed with him as much as he could. As much as it hurt to see his sweet, beautiful boy in so much pain, he always went to him after work, holding his trembling hands and eyeing the angry red track marks that littered his thin, pale arms. (He hated looking at the injection sites. He kissed them and halfway hoped that when he pulled his lips away, they’d somehow be gone.)

When the team came to visit, they were always quiet. Pensive. Sad. (Even _Garcia_ seemed drained, which was a canary in a coal mine if Derek had ever known one.)

Hotch visited Spencer only once, to let him know that he would be relieved of his duties immediately and needed to turn in his gun and badge as soon as he was discharged from the hospital. 

_I’m disappointed in you, Reid_ , he said, _but even more disappointed that I let you turn out this way. You had so much potential._

Spencer cried himself to hiccups for three days, but Derek couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry for him. 

That second overdose ate away at them. 

The safe, domestic space they'd intentionally created for themselves at Derek's house (away from the violence of their work) had been violated—by both broken trust and the overall trauma of the overdose at home—and the house was not the peaceful, welcoming home it had once been.

The tension in which they lived was nearly intolerable, but sometimes, when Spencer would fall asleep on the couch curled up against Derek’s chest, or when he’d wrap his arms around Derek’s neck in the shower and hum contentedly as the older man washed his hair, he hated himself for even thinking of abandoning him. These were moments when _this_ Spencer was very much still the sweet, passionate, awkwardly-affectionate Spencer Reid Derek fallen in love with three years ago, and he couldn’t bring himself to drive those moments—that version of Spencer—out of his life. 

* * *

It wasn’t until Spencer started using heroin that his habit really, truly became intolerable. 

Dilaudid, a painkiller created in a lab, tested and approved by the FDA, is _expensive_. _Far_ too expensive for someone without a job. 

Heroin, however, mixed god-knows-where with god-knows-what by god-knows-who, is cheap. (Not cheap enough that Spencer doesn’t have to steal money and pawn off the heirloom watch he got from his grandfather, but still far cheaper than Dilaudid.)

Derek figured it out when he found a broken water balloon buried in their bathroom trashcan. 

_What the fuck is wrong with you?_

_I don’t know. I’m sorry._

_Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?_

_Yes. I know. Derek, I’m sorry_ —

_Are you insane? “Sorry” is not good enough anymore, do you understand that? One of these days, you’re gonna wind up face-down in a ditch and I’m not gonna know what happened to you. I can’t fucking take that._

_I—_

_Last chance. Last chance to take this seriously. I’m taking you to day treatment one more fucking time and that’s it. You choose. You can choose me, or you can choose this shit, but you can’t have both anymore._

* * *

Naturally, Spencer’s third overdose, following weeks of day treatment, hasn’t found Derek well. 

Derek’s so familiar with the detox unit by now that he doesn’t have to be shown to Spencer’s room. He declines the offer of a hospital escort he receives at the front desk, and the nurse, who recognizes him, gives him a pitying look. 

He navigates the hall completely alone—no nurses or teammates by his sides.

When he opens the door, Spencer is sitting upright in bed, holding his face in his hands. 

Neither of them want to have this conversation.

Derek wordlessly pulls the chair in the corner of the room up to his bedside. 

“You know what I’m about to say to you?” He asks once it's become apparent that Spencer has nothing to say for himself.

“Yes,” Spencer whispers. “You...never meant for it to end this way, right?” 

“Right.” 

They sit in thick, painful silence for a moment. 

“I _love you_ ,” Derek says eventually, his voice cracking under the strain of months of Spencer’s habit. “So, _so_ fucking much. I don’t want to, but I _do_ , and I’m gonna love you for the rest of my life. I gave you a choice, remember?”

“I…I know.” 

“Right. And...you made your choice. But…if you ever change your mind, if you…get clean, and you make a different choice, I’ll still be here, okay? My number will stay the same.” 

Spencer’s face crumples, and he begins to cry freely, chest heaving, tears falling rapidly down his hollowed, gaunt cheeks.

_God, he must be thirty pounds underweight._

For just a moment, Derek feels the urge to wrap his arms around Spencer’s thin, shaking shoulders and wipe the tears from his beautiful brown eyes. He wants to comfort him, make him feel safe and loved the way he used to be able to before narcotics took the job. 

Instead, he stands up, turns his back on the love of his life, and prepares to face a life as lonely and desolate as the halls of the Quantico detox unit.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you thought of this--it'd mean a lot to me!


End file.
